So that’s about it for the latest social media, mobile and Internet statistics as at May 2012 – as per usual I’ll have another statistics update in another month for you. To make sure you don’t miss out on the most up to date statistics be sure to like my Facebook Page, follow me on Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube…. I love being stalked. And also, that million dollars (most importantly).

“56% of social media users have admitted to using channels to spy on their partners”. And these are the only folk who actually admit to checking out who and what their partners are doing on facebook. I’m sure with the increase in online dating, checking out your prospect’s friends, may indicate the company they keep.

Today in the NZ Herald – Go Break The Ice (GBTI). FB obviously saw an opportunity in this 56% of social media users. Facebook is using kiwis to launch its new feature. GBTI works on friends’ recommendations – bringing a new level of transparency and honesty to the online dating world, said company spokesman Philip Behnke.

Thanks John, I really appreciate it – will think about putting a donate button but in the meantime these messages of gratitude are all the payment I need Let me know if you’ve got any ideas for future articles!

Not following the Facebook stat:
137.6 million unique visitors per month
Facebook has 901 million monthly active users

What is the difference? does this mean the 137.6 million unique visitors account for a total of 901 million visits?
901 million is the number I have heard of registered users, not all necessarily using facebook every month

Good point. Actually that monthly stat is for the USA alone – sometimes when you read articles they don’t bother to specify because they think the whole world revolves around America only! I checked on it and realised it’s just in the US and amended the article to reflect this. Thanks for pointing the discrepancy out.

The 901 million monthly active users means that there are 901 million people around the world that log onto Facebook and use it in any given month (as opposed to simply visiting the site, which may mean they don’t even have an account but just checking it out)

Thanks for putting this all together! In the future, can you site each specific stat? It’s great to have the statistics all in one place, but time consuming to figure out where each one came from in order to verify/cite.

Hi Ann, it’s a good point. A lot of the time these stats just have an assumed ‘online’ in there – so 62% of ‘online adults’ are using social media. Sounds fairly reasonable to me. However, we can never really be sure about the accuracy of any statistics, always just relying on the source where it came from – all of these stats have been compiled from external sources, I can’t claim to have run any studies myself!

Hi Cara, I keep coming back to your list as a point of reference. I’m continuing to collect and analyse data for local Facebook usage, and now have some mobile Facebook data by device type (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android etc) in case you’re interested.

That’s a great post! The mobile apps statistics are really cool and the general social networking stats are just unbelievable. I think the percentage of adults worldwide using social media is not just 62% as this can be the average with the calculation of the age that they have mentioned. I have seen many adults mentioning fake ages and using the profile. If we happen to include that then the percentage will exceed 75% for sure. Anyways, thanks for the informative share.

Kudos Cara for the lively (hot) pic and interesting post with real good insights.

While most of the stats point towards increase in social media usage and its impact on sales (which i guess is natural given the ease of calculating ROI on social media investments), I would like to ask if you have seen any trends and have stats around social media usage for servicing. How can one really look at creating a tangible ROI calculations and business case for social media utility in servicing.I see a lot of organizations are still skeptical in creating a robust social media servicing strategy. Any pointers on that!!!

i am hear to give testimony of how i got back my husband, we got married for more than 9 years and have gotten two kids. thing were going well with us and we are always happy. until one day my husband started to behave in a way i could not understand, i was very confused by the way he treat me and the kids. later that month he did not come home again and he called me that he want a divorce, i asked him what have i done wrong to deserve this from him, allhe was saying is that he want a divorce that he hate me and do not want to see me again in his life, i was mad and also frustrated do not know what to do,i was sick for more than 2 weeks because of the divorce. i love him so much he was everything to me without him my life is incomplete. i told my sister and she told me to contact a spell caster, i never believein all this spell casting of a thing. i just want to try if something will come out of it. icontacted traditionalspellhospital for the return of my husband to me, they told me that my husband have been taken by another woman, that she cast a spell on him that is why he hate me and also want us to divorce. then they told me that they have to cast a spell onhim that will make him return to me and the kids, they casted the spell and after 1 week my husband called me and he told me that i should forgive him, he sterted to apologize on phone and said that he still live me that he did not know what happen to him that he left me. it was the spell that he traditionalspellhospital casted on him that make him comeback to me today,me and my family are now happy again today. thank you traditionalspellhospital for what you have done for me i would have been nothing today if not for your great spell. i want you my friends who are passing through all this kind of love problem of getting back thier husband, wife , or ex boyfriend and girlfriend to and you will see that your problem will be solved without any delay.

I have another statistic that hopefully you may be able to find. I am interested in knowing how many twitter users, topics, etc., does the average person follow? My curiosity comes from how much emphasis is placed on one’s number of twitter followers in the media these days. Case in point, of the top 10 most followed people on twitter, the only non celebrity/entertainer is President Obama (This is of course the American twitter statistics). It is lauded as some great achievement to have millions upon millions of followers, as if that achievement alone is more impressive than whatever the person actually has accomplished. It certainly is impressive, sure enough; but, if each of (for example) Justin Bieber’s 20 million twitter followers each followed (for example) 1,000 twitter accounts, that means that of those 20 billion total follows, he makes up less than 1% of them. The average user will make up a considerably less percentage of a given sample of total follows, but nevertheless, to me that makes ones number of followers almost irrelevant and, like stocks, causes the “market” to be flooded. In otherwords, if you “Like” or “Follow” everything, you don’t really like or follow anything, just like if everyone owned a piece of stock in Apple, that piece of stock would be worthless. I know I am drawing a strange tangent, but I think this counter argument is at least important to discuss given how suddenly exposure via twitter has juxtaposed itself in the media.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you for the article.

What a great blog! Fantastic information regarding social media and now one of my “must reads”. I work at Blurtster.com, a social media tool for small businesses and see the changes in the industry every day. It is amazing and this site really keeps you up to date with new and informative statistics.

Great info – just what I was looking for. However, I’d like to quote your stats to clients and would like to show the original data source. Any chance you’d be prepared to supply references in future blogs?

Great info – just what I was looking for. However, I’d like to quote your stats to clients and would like to show the original data source. Any chance you’d be prepared to supply references in future blogs?

Its hard to believe that, “Google+ is the second-most used social network for sharing multimedia content from a mobile device (10%)” when there are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Tumblr Apps. All of which reported more users that G+.

Hi Alan – I agree and this is where you have to consider that stats are only as good as the data used to compile them at the time they were compiled. There’s every chance the study that concluded this happened right when there was a lot of hype around Google+ so that people were much more active on the network. Sometimes you need to take stats with a grain of salt because particularly with social media, they are always changing. That’s why I try to write an updated stats article every month (see my latest one here: http://thesocialskinny.com/216-social-media-and-internet-statistics-september-2012/)

Hi you,
nice stats – could you tell me where you got them from?
Is there any official statistic displaying the results you have been published here?
Would like to use some figures for my project, but I need a reliable source!

As I mention in all my statistics articles, the sources are down the bottom of the article. In my latest stats post I spent a lot more time referencing every statistic so that there was no longer any confusion. Hope that helps.
Thanks
Cara

I think you’ve written great . Yes, you’ve chosen the right topics to inform us in such a informative way. Thanks for the helpful post you’ve provided. Hoping further informative post thanks you again.

Bwahahaha, I just had to comment. Not because of the insightful and hard work that has gone into sourcing a ginormous amount of statistical data, but because of the hilarious image captions. Good work!

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Hi there, my name is Cara Pring, welcome to The Social Skinny, a website dedicated to social media and website optimization strategy. If you want simple, jargon-free tips and updates, you've come to the right place! Outside the geeky expert stuff I'm a crazy cat lady from Sydney - and no, that is not me in the header (everyone asks). You can find out more about me in the About page or you can connect with me on Twitter, FB, LinkedIn & G+. Thanks for stopping by :)
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